The Costs of Becoming Disabled

Paul Sullivan, in his Wealth Matters column this week, discusses a subject that is often overlooked - disability insurance. While it is difficult to figure out the risk of becoming disabled sometime in your working life, the benefits of having the insurance are easy to determine, since it pays you some portion of your regular salary.

But, as Paul points out, the cost of disability insurance can be $18.60 per $1,000 of coverage for individuals, with a 90-day waiting period before the coverage starts. Most people who have the insurance get it through their employer, and group policies are less expensive. Even so, life insurance costs far less - 22 cents per $1,000.

Do you have disability insurance? And if so, have you ever had to use it? Tell us about your experience.

When You Ask a Senator or Member of Congress for Help

In this weekend's Your Money column, I remind readers of a consumer service that I managed to forget about myself and certainly never wrote about before: the full-time staff members who work for senators and members of Congress who do nothing but help constituents with problems (often financial ones) that somehow involve a federal agency. In many offices, they refer to this as constituent service, and the people who do the work are often called caseworkers.

While some of these staff members (and their bosses, the elected officials) are more efficient and interested in the job than others, they can and do help people who are having a hard time dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the regulators who oversee mortgage lenders.

I had room for only a few examples in the column, so let's hear about some from you now. Please compose a comment telling us about the request for help that you made, when you made it and to whom and what the result (if any) was. Tales from state representatives are welcome, too. Stories of failure are fair game, as always.

Also, my guess is that a few actual caseworkers will turn up here,  too. Don't be shy, please; share your favorite success stories and tales of crazy people calling as well, even if you have to leave your current or former employer out of it. And do let us know which federal agencies are the toughest to deal with. I hear that immigration is one of them.

For Clinton and Marie Claire, Much Ado About Whining

The story was irresistible: Hillary Clinton lashes out at her former adviser! Calls Anne-Marie (“Women Can't Have It All”) Slaughter a “Whiner”!

Except that the truthiness of this proposition was pretty much zero.

An interview with Mrs. Clinton in Marie Claire quickly found notoriety online Thursday after Politico wrote that Mrs. Clinton had appeared to criticize Ms. Slaughter, a former top policy adviser. Ms. Slaughter wrote a widely discussed article in The Atlantic this summer arguing that many women cannot live up to the pressure they face to juggle demanding jobs and family responsibilities.

Midway through Marie Claire's 3,300-word article, written by Ayelet Waldman, Mrs. Clinton is said to have responded to a question about the Atlantic article with “palpable” disapproval. “Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs,” she said. “Other women don't break a sweat. They have four or five, six kids. They're highly organized. They have very supportive networks.”

The Marie Claire story continues in the next paragraph without reference to any change in topic:

Clinton has very little patience for those whose privilege offers them a myriad of choices but who fail to take advantage of them. “I can't stand whining,” she says. “I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. You live in a time when there are endless choices … Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself … Do something!”

Some readers interpreted this quote as representing further comments about Ms. Slaughter, and the story circulated widely online: on Politico, The Huffington Post, Jezebel and elsewhere. It found further life when the notion began to fall apart that the “whining” comment was made in response to Ms. Slaughter.

Mrs. Clinton herself called the attribution “wildly inaccurate.” A spokeswoman for Marie Claire told various publications, including Politico, that the “whining” comment was not directed at Ms. Slaughter but was, “as noted in the story, part of a larger conversation about women in the workplace and striking a work-life balance.”

That still wasn't good enough for the State Department. Philippe Reines, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton, told The Washington Post that the “whining” comment was made in reference to a question from Ms. Waldman about, of all things, J.D. Salinger's book “The Catcher in the Rye.” He provided an excerpt from a transcript of the interview:

AYELET WALDMAN: My daughter was reading “Catcher in the Rye,” and I said, “Oh, don't you love that book?” And she said, “What is his problem? He's unhap py? He should go volunteer.”

SECRETARY CLINTON: Good for her. I like your daughter without even meeting her. I mean, I think there's so much to that, because I mean, God, I can't stand whining. I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they are not happy with choices they made. You live in a time when there are endless choices, and you don't have to have money for them. Money certainly helps. I mean, having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to - even, like, work on yourself, learn to play a sport, do something.

Mr. Reines also complained that Marie Claire had publicized the article through e-mails to journalists that specifically characterized the comment as a response to Ms. Slaughter.

By Friday afternoon, meanwhile, the meme continued to spread. Politico's story - which contains Marie Claire's statement that the quote was about “a large r conversation about women in the workplace” but nothing about “The Catcher in the Rye” - was the most-read recent story on the site.

Ms. Slaughter spoke her mind in a Twitter message late Thursday afternoon: “Hillary Clinton, for whom I have the greatest admiration and loyalty, was not talking about me when she mentioned whining. #anything4astory”

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Roger Ailes Signs Up for Another 4 Years at Fox News

3:29 p.m. | Updated Roger Ailes will remain in charge of the Fox News Channel for the next four years, the News Corporation said on Friday, ending a protracted period of speculation about his contract negotiations.

The previous contract was set to expire next summer. By renewing, Mr. Ailes will remain at Fox through the next presidential election season in 2016.

The News Corporation, which owns Fox, confirmed the renewal in a brief news release on Friday afternoon. It was reported earlier in the day by The Daily Beast. It was unclear whether the new contract takes effect immediately, or next year. Either way it will take Mr. Ailes through the 20-year anniversary of Fox News.

Mr. Ailes, 72, has run Fox News since its founding in 1996. He has also run a spinoff channel, the Fox Business Network, since 2007, and he has oversight of Fox's local television stations and its television syndication arm.

The notion t hat Mr. Ailes might decide to retire has intrigued many media observers this year, especially after he hinted that he might not stay at Fox News. Mr. Ailes is widely credited with the financial and cultural success of Fox News, the highest-rated cable news channel and a megaphone for conservative commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. The channel now rivals the broadcast networks during some big news events, like the presidential debates this month.

The terms of the new contract were not released. Mr. Ailes is already one of the highest-paid executives in television; he has received a base salary of $5 million and a bonus of $1.5 million a year for several years, as well as millions in compensation based on the financial performance of Fox News, according to public filings by News Corporation.

In the fiscal year that ended in June, for instance, Mr. Ailes received $9 million, paid in cash rather than stock, as a reward for Fox's record earnings. Furthe rmore, he received $4 million in stock awards tied to the performance of Fox Business. His total compensation for the fiscal year was $21 million, making him the third-highest-paid executive at the News Corporation, behind the chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, who made $30 million, and Chase Carey, the chief operating officer, who made nearly $25 million.

Tellingly, Mr. Murdoch's and Mr. Carey's total compensation dropped between 2011 and 2012; Mr. Ailes's compensation rose, from $15.5 million the previous fiscal year. In the public filing that disclosed the compensation, News Corporation cited the fact that Fox News “held the top position in cable news, grew its distribution to nearly 100 million homes and successfully expanded its brand to radio, Internet, international and mobile markets.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 10/20/2012, on page B2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Roger Ailes Signs Up for Another 4 Years at Fox News.